Last night was workgroup night, tho' it was only JS and I, not the full group. Still we were at the coffee shop for 2 hours and I hardly stopped to let my mind drift. Scads of words. The problem was that few of them are linear and most are storyteller voice, not character voice. Still flying a bit high in the clouds and not coming down to the significant detail and voices yet. Still not sure where this is going, although I seem to know what will happen in the end to the Mouse King. I just have to get there. Interestingly, my typical personal 'issues' have surfaced, so to me that means this is truly one of my stories and I'm on the right track. The Mentor sayeth that I let too much emotion creep in and that's making the stories slide around and not get pinned down, that whenever I'm drafting, I'm inserting the feelings du jour. I dunno. It doesn't quite feel that way. It feels as if I was sort of searching around for the groove and now I've found it. The proof in the pudding will be if I finish what I've started and it finishes with this backstory I've now created for it. For me, the plus of the past year with my workgroup has been an increase in emotion in my writing.

Peaseblossom was born into interesting times. The Mouse King had become something of an annoyance to Hoarfrost and the fairy folk. He was a formidable lover and the ranks of mouse folk grew larger and larger, pushing at the borders of Faery. Small skirmishes began to take place. Noticeable amounts of produce began to disappear from fairy gardens, grain disappeared at an alarming rate from fairy silos. Princelings were seen running back across the border into Mouseland. Hoarfrost protested these trespasses and the Mouse King lent a sympathetic ear while disclaiming all knowledge of the thievery, though he served his guest fresh watermelon and other manner of garden fare.

Fairies began to patrol the borders seated on tiny saddles on the backs of cats and owls, deadly to mice. In small mouse holdings along the border, the subjects were too terrified to leave their burrows. Mouse princelings mysteriously disappeared. The sound of hunting horns could be heard in the night along with hoots and yowls. The Mouse King protested what he called 'this blood sport' and Hoarfrost apologized for the poor schooling of his cat cavalry and owl air force, the cause of a few unfortunate accidents. Both were notoriously difficult to train, you must know.

The kings continued to visit each other, continued to meet and discuss matters of State and Trade. They officially ignored the activities of their subjects. But both were seriously disturbed. Neither had any desire to engage in open conflict. Fairies were immortal and difficult to kill. They would slay thousands of mice before a single fairy fell. As for the fairies, that was exactly the problem: thousands of mice. They had no desire to have a single fairy fall in combat with the mice and it was somewhat distasteful to imagine so many mice coming at them at once. It was distasteful enough to elicit a delicate shudder from fairy folk at the very thought. And mice mothers wailed at the idea of losing so many children in an uncertain war. While more could be borne, each had been cherished and would be sorely missed.